US: Christie's autumn sale of impressionist and modern art lived up to its billing as the biggest auction in history, led by four Nazi-looted Klimts restored to their rightful heirs that raked in nearly $200 million (€157 million).
The Klimts included a portrait that fetched the third-highest auction price ever, while new records were also set for Gauguin, Schiele and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner at the $492 million sale.
In the end, however, the night belonged to Klimt, and to Maria Altmann, a Los Angeles nonagenarian and the niece of the Austrian couple, Adele and Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, who lost the works to the Nazis.
The four paintings, led by the portrait Adele Bloch-Bauer II, fetched $192.7 million including Christie's commission - double the expectations for the works by the Austrian artist, which had never been offered on the open market.
Adele Bloch-Bauer II alone went for just under $88 million, becoming the third-highest priced piece of art at auction. Last summer Manhattan's Neue Galerie obtained Adele Bloch-Bauer I for a reported $135 million, at the time the top known price in history for a work of art.
"The results were completely phenomenal, and beyond our wildest expectations," said Christopher Burge, Christie's honorary chairman and the sale's auctioneer. "Everything, at every level. It was just extraordinary across the board. I've never seen a sale like this," he said of the frenzied bidding.
The total was some $200 million higher than any previous single event, Christie's said. Only six of 84 lots on offer went unsold.
It almost didn't matter that one of the star lots, Picasso's $50 million Blue Period portrait of Angel Fernandez do Soto, was withdrawn by Andrew Lloyd Webber after an 11th-hour claim and litigation over its rightful title.
The British composer decided not to sell the work, the proceeds of which had been earmarked for charity, without a clear title, Christie's said earlier on Wednesday. But auction officials said they were confident they could resolve the matter and would be able to sell it on behalf of Lloyd Webber's foundation as planned.
Maria Altmann, who will share the proceeds with her children and grandchildren, told reporters beforehand that she hoped at least some of the works would end up on museum walls or other public display.
"My family and I are delighted to see these treasured paintings find new homes," she said in a statement after the sale, in which she called the restitution "a landmark case". And noting that her aunt and uncle had taken great joy in owning the paintings some 70 years ago, she added: "We trust the new owners will build on this tradition of appreciation."
With all the hoopla over the Klimts, Gauguin's early Tahiti painting, Man With an Axe, was somewhat overshadowed, despite setting a record for the artist when it sold for more than $40 million (€31m) right in the middle of its pre-sale estimate.
Another Nazi-looted work returned to its rightful heirs and sold on Wednesday was Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Berlin Street Scene, which soared to $38.1 million (€30m) or more than twice the estimate, making it the sale's fourth-highest-priced work.